Christmas Sparks Day 16 Mummy’s Christmas Cake

My earliest memory of Christmas is standing before the pullkoodu and being given a piece of fruit cake. In my family since childhood, there has never been a Christmas without the fruit cakes baked by my mother. They were legendary to say the least. To this day, my friends tell me that they think of Mummy’s fruit cake.

Baking the Christmas fruit cake and preparing all ingredients from scratch was not an easy thing. Mummy would begin preparations months before, soaking the dry fruits in brandy/wine and storing them in glass jars. Come December holidays and Mummy would start getting the cakes ready, a long and laborious process which filled the house with a cosy and delicious fragrance — which to us was the ‘smell’ of Christmas. The joy that Mummy’s cakes have brought to all who’ve had them remains very special. Unforgettable.

For us, members of Christ’s Church, how fortunate are we to have Him, who chose to be born in a manger — a feeding trough — that too, in Bethlehem, the ‘House of Bread’; drew people to Himself by feeding their physical and spiritual hunger; then gave up His Body and Blood to redeem us, and so that we never forget, comes to us in every Mass in that simple, white wafer to nourish our body and soul.

For my mother, it has become a part of her to treat family and friends with her signature cakes at Christmas. For Jesus, it is His nature to draw us to Himself, feeding us unforgettable love, joy and peace.

Tania Rose Josun